On our second day out with our friend Kate Gannon we visited a number of interesting and a few powerful sites in Dorset, England. Of all the sites, my favorite was the holy well known as St. Augustine’s Well in the official literature. The well was originally called the Silver Well, but the monks at nearby Cerne Abbey must of thought that wasn’t sexy enough to draw pilgrims, so they made up a story about how St. Augustine struck the ground with his staff and the well issued forth. That story, or one very much like it, is told of many holy wells in Europe.
Kate, Elyn, and I reached the well after passing through the local cemetery, which has an interesting “preaching stone.” The ruins of Cerne Abbey are next to the cemetery. The well is located in a hollow that is approached through a path lined with huge lime (linden) trees. As soon as we entered this avenue the atmosphere changed and a great sense of peace came over us. The well itself was overflowing with crystalline, pure, rapidly flowing water that gave me an immediate sense of how abundant the earth can be for us. My companions fell silent and we simply sat, stood, or meandered about the well in blissful contentment. I felt that we could stay there for the rest of the day and, in fact, we did spend considerable time there. I came away feeling healed and put back together again, and I sensed that the others felt similarly, although we were too peaceful to talk about it.
Perhaps the peaceful energy of the place accounts for numerous legends about the well. As with many holy wells, there are legends of the healing properties of the waters. Another legend states that if you stare into the waters on Easter morning you will know who will die in the village in the next year. On a more positive note, a different legend states that girls who perform a simple ritual at the well and pray to St. Catherine (whose chapel was once on a hill near the site) will be granted husbands in the near future. I wonder if that has anything to do with the famous Cerne Abbas Giant (a huge, naked, priapic figure brandishing a club, carved into the chalk hillside nearby). A more general version of that story states that any wish you make will be granted if you drink the water from a cup made from a leaf of one of the nearby trees.
St. Augustine and St. Catherine aside, our wishes for healing and rest from travel were granted and we went away feeling refreshed and renewed.
Of Cerne Abbas, Silver, St. Catherine, St. Augustine, and sacred waters
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